LESSON 08: RESENTMENT

STEP 4
"We searched and made an honest moral inventory of ourselves.”

Ephesians 4:31
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with
all malice.

THINK ABOUT IT
When we have resentment, a major part of us shuts down. We become bitter inside and less able
to express our love. We lose our aliveness and our joy for life. We put up protective walls and
make our life more difficult. Bitterness and resentment are poisons that destroy our lives.

We are imprisoned by our bitterness and resentment without us realizing it. It affects our life, our
vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with others. Step 4 helps us identify
and write down those resentments in order to focus on the unresolved anger we harbor whether
perceived or real.

A. WHAT IS RESENTMENT?

Resentment comes from the Latin word sentire, which means "to feel." When "re” is put in
front of any word, it means "again," so the word resent means "to feel again."
 After experiencing what we perceive as being wronged by someone, our first
response is usually anger or frustration.
 We do not feel resentful yet for we feel the original pain. If that offender has never
caused us pain in the past, or if we have never experienced being insulted before
and that person apologizes immediately, we would not feel resentful. But it he
remains unrepentant and we review the event in our mind later, we feel the anger
and frustration again and we move to the next stage, which is resentment.
 If we are self-centered, it is usually difficult to let the incident pass because we
tend to keep score so that we can, at some point, get back at the offender.

B. HOW IS RESENTMENT MANIFESTED?

Bitterness is characterized by an unforgiving spirit, which generally results into a negative

or critical attitude. There is a feeling of deep disagreeableness towards a person or group.
Resentment is a very similar feeling, but is usually directed toward a target as a result of
a specific action or series of acts.

 Unresolved bitterness causes us to linger on negative thoughts about others, thus

disabling open communication with those who have offended us.
 The apostle Paul was aware of this attitude and gave a warning against keeping a
record of others' failures toward us.

Hebrews 12:15
"See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness
springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.”

 A "bitter root" takes hold when we allow hurt or disappointment to grow to

resentment over past hurts.
 The longer we allow bitterness to grow, the more difficult it is to get rid of.

Ephesians 4:31
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you,
along with all malice.”

In this verse, Paul described the progression of bitterness in our mind, which
eventually alters our behavior and change our heart.

Anger (rage, Slander

Wrath (Outbursts Clamor (making a Malice (inner
Bitterness constant state of (derogatory,
of Anger) public scene) hatred of heart)
anger) damaging speech)

 Note the progression from a person's harboring an attitude of bitterness to a

state of being controlled by it.

C. WHAT ARE THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF UNRESOLVED RESENTMENT?

We often tail to see the natural, emotional response of bitterness and resentment tor
what it truly is – a spiritual problem.

It is easier to focus on the faults of others and the hurt they caused us, identifying their
shortcomings and not our own. This is evidence of pride.

We become unforgiving because we think that forgiving others gives them freedom to
continue hurting us. Therefore, we believe that we must continue to hold faults against
them to influence them to deal with issues. This is manipulation.

Selfishness also causes us to harbor bitterness. We focus on our hurts or our rights and
tail to consider the needs of others.
D. HOW DO WE APPLY THIS LESSON?
The first step in releasing resentment is to be willing to feel the hurt. Look under your
resentment and find the hurt. Find those feelings of being not good enough or not worth
loving that you have been avoiding. Then be willing to experience them. Cry it you can.

Once you are willing to find and feel this hurt, you will no longer need the resentment.

The exercises in Step 4 will help us identity resentments and unresolved anger because
it is important for our recovery. David's prayer in the Book of Psalms is a good prayer to
start with because it is the most important aspect before writing our inventory:

Psalm 139:23-24
"Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And everlasting way." see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the
everlasting way.”

We all responsible for what we think, feel, say and do. No one can make us bitter. But
we choose to respond to situations in a bitter way. Some people are bitter because they
refuse to let go by forgiving.

Bitterness and Resentment are reflected in four aspects of our being, namely:
1. Relational Being - This covers the three relationships we have: our relationship with God,
our relationship with ourselves, and our relationship with others (which includes the
physical world around us).
2. Rational Being - This involves our thinking, and our perception of people and events, which
can be affected by our preconceived ideas and the lies in our head.
3. Emotional Being - This includes what we feel, which has affected the choices we made in
responding to the hurt done to us. Our self-esteem, emotional security, our material
possessions or financial security, our ambitions, our personal relationships (including
sexual relationship) were either hurt or threatened.
4. Volitional Being – The fourth aspect points to how we reacted to the situation and the
decisions we made during that time and afterward.